Editorial: Riviera Beach has big decision: new homes vs. beloved affordable golf course

As golf courses go, it ain't Pebble Beach. But for years Lone Pine, across N. Military Trail from Rapids Water Park, has served Riviera Beach well.

It's a modest spot for residents of the diverse city of 35,000 to learn and practice the world's most frustrating sport, without having to pay the higher prices of wealthier neighboring communities, like Palm Beach Gardens.

But now, as happens more and more in Palm Beach County, which has more golf courses than probably anywhere, the 63.6-acre, 18-hole Lone Pine Golf Course and Practice Range has proven more valuable for its real estate than for the handful of dollars it brings in from greens fees and buckets of practice balls.

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Texas-based homebuilder, D.R. Horton, has proposed to buy the course and fill it with 124 homes, back-to-back with the existing houses that overlook it, and another 162 townhomes along the Military Trail frontage.

The proposal, rejected unanimously June 9 by the city's Planning and Zoning Board after community residents came out in force, now heads to the city council, presenting the governing body a challenge that is philosophical, economic and democratic, all at once.

The issue provides this evolving city with a chance to decide where its values and priorities lie for the decades ahead and to do so in a considered, deliberate way that sets a tone for all of its municipal undertakings.

Last week's zoning meeting provided an encouraging example of how these issues should be thought through. Staff evaluated the proposal and expressed that it met technical requirements for the city council to consider. The company presented its case. Residents presented theirs.

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It's not an easy call for the city. Many issues come into play.

First, should the landowners be forced to operate it as a golf course, presumably making minimal income, when they could sell it for far more if it were rezoned for housing?

Second, does the city need additional housing, and the property tax revenues that would buttress city services? Would this project provide the right housing, priced affordably for the city's workforce? Would this be the right location for it?

Or, does Riviera Beach need to safeguard open land for recreation? The course, after all, provides residents with an entry point to a sport to which the city's children and adults have little easy or affordable access nearby. As one resident told the zoning board: "Just consider the next Tiger Woods coming from this community, as opposed to from some other community."

To spare the property for recreation, though, the city might have to come up with millions of dollars to buy, operate and maintain the site, at a time when Riviera Beach already is undertaking a new city hall, police headquarters, fire stations, water utility and marina redevelopment. Somebody would have to run the numbers to figure out how such a purchase might be possible.

Residents of the homes that surround the course told the board of having paid a premium for their golf views. They spoke of birds, fish and turtles on the course. "It's a peaceful and lovely part of Riviera Beach," one homeowner said. Now, rather than open their doors and see a fairway and wildlife, they'd see "an opaque fence," as a developer's representative described the property buffer.

Others said the project would aggravate flooding and pour hundreds of cars daily onto Military Trail. They complained that the developer's traffic study was conducted during the depths of the pandemic in 2020, when school buses and rush hour traffic had temporarily vanished.

A lawyer for the developer countered that the studies did account for normal traffic. She said the proposal met all its legal requirements and that residents' complaints were based in emotion, not law.

No date has been set for the city council to decide the matter but council members have some thinking to do. We urge them to conduct a financial analysis and find a way to purchase the site if possible, not just for immediate neighbors' sake but to serve as a golf education facility for youths, similar to what West Palm Beach is doing with its municipal course.

Council members need to ask themselves what their vision is for the future of Riviera Beach. The public needs to do the same and to make itself heard.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Riviera Beach golf course housing proposal requires careful thought.